In his announcement, [publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr] said Abramson’s departure was related to “an issue with management in the newsroom,” and had nothing to do with the quality of the paper’s journalism during her tenure....The male CEO "took an unprecedently hands-on approach" to the paper's first female executive editor and staff said she was "condescending and combative"? Would they have said that about a man?
Despite significant achievements, Abramson’s tenure was marred by disagreements with Times CEO Mark Thompson, who took an unprecedently hands-on approach to managing the paper’s editorial resources....
Abramson also suffered from perceptions among staff that she was condescending and combative.
I'm reviewing my "Ban Bossy" notes.
ADDED: AHA!
The link goes to this Ken Auletta piece in The New Yorker:
Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was “pushy,” a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect.Emphasis added. She leaned in! And she got called pushy and she got pushed out.
Now, the NYT has financial woes and her predecessor had more seniority, but so what? The NYT has been hot on the "equal pay" story for years. Let it be judged by the standards it has pushed — pushily — all these years.
पोस्ट्स
१०७ टिप्पण्या:
Would they have said that about a man?
Probably, if he was combative and condescending.
"Probably, if he was combative and condescending."
You can only mean: "Probably, if they perceived him as combative and condescending."
And therein lies the problem.
A man behaving in the manner that causes a woman to be perceived as combative and condescending would probably be perceived as aggressive (or maybe only forceful or commanding) and arrogant (or maybe only dominant or not suffering fools gladly).
Look, I have no idea how awful Abrahamson actually was.
I'm just giving the NYT a dose of its own liberal medicine.
They wanted a female editor. They took the plaudits for their breakthrough, and then they didn't like what they got and ousted her.
Don't let them off easy!
But what if she really was combative and condescending?
I don't have a dog in this hunt. I'm just gonna watch and enjoy the show. It's delicious!
Poor Jill Abramson, she leaned in so much she could be toppled by a Pinch.
They wanted a female editor. They took the plaudits for their breakthrough, and then they didn't like what they got and ousted her.
Twitter says Abrahamson found she was being paid less than the deputy managing editor.
Female Editor gets Boco Haramed. It's a small world of good old boys on Manhattan Island. Jill needs to move to Texas and recreate herself as an Austin Democrat where freedom for a powerful woman really exists. Freedom is good for liberal women.
A man behaving in the manner that causes a woman to be perceived as combative and condescending would probably be perceived as aggressive (or maybe only forceful or commanding) and arrogant (or maybe only dominant or not suffering fools gladly).
I don't think that's true. I've certainly worked with men whose demeanor was best described as condescending, and it never occurred to me to find a less accurate word simply because of their gender.
Besides, even if your point is accurate, I'm not convinced that the aspects of human nature that respond poorly to aggressive women bosses can be changed just because women want them changed. Why should the New York Times put up with ineffective leadership simply because it would be effective with a different universe of human.
Ho Ho Ho.
The same Jill Abramson who was bumped as the commencement speaker at Barnard College three weeks before graduation so that Barack Obama could be the speaker. The Barnard incident was
1. another example that Obama has no class
2. clear evidence that Obama was confident that the NYT was in his pocket no matter what insult he might participate in towards its Executive Editor
3. pretty good evidence that Forbes was off by a mile when it called her the word's fifth most powerful woman.
According to Wikipedia, Abramson "bonded" with Maureen Dowd during the Clarence Thomas hearings. She "clashed" with Judith Miller and went so far as to be a witness in the Scooter Libby trial whose testimony was designed to undermine the credibility of Miller.
I was pleased to see that her firing had nothing to do with news quality. Sort of implies that she was fired just for being a b###h, doesn't it?
I'll be interested to see how Dowd processes this.
Ann @5;26
You make a hell of an assumption about the difference between the way men's and women's behavior is perceived. If a man is combative and condescending that is the way he is perceived. Your view is distorted by your academic surroundings. In the real world people - male or female - actually exhibit the traits that Abrams did and subordinates can accurately identify them.
Roughcoat said...
But what if she really was combative and condescending?
That would put her right in the wheelhouse of top editors of the New York Times over the years.
Link Why Jill Abrahamson was fired
The twitter world is all abuzz. The claim is she wanted as much money as her predecessor.
It's a war on wymyns!!
The NYT deserves your treatment, Anne, but I can't really get exercised over the left eating its own.
Here comes the push back from the New Yorker and presumably Abramson. Its War on Women!! h/t Drudge.
As with any such upheaval, there’s a history behind it. Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was “pushy,” a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect.
It only matters if you pick a woman if you think men and women are different.
Bossy.
"A man behaving in the manner that causes a woman to be perceived as combative and condescending would probably be perceived as aggressive (or maybe only forceful or commanding) and arrogant (or maybe only dominant or not suffering fools gladly)."
I call bullshit. I have too many anecdotes of women bosses being intolerable. Most women prefer male bosses.
For eons men have been leaders and women followers. Something to do with gestation and child rearing, ya think? All of of sudden some leftist equalist twits decide that a million years or more of evolution and biological conditioning can be overcome at a whim and women shall lead. Puhleeze.
The Joan Of Arcs and the Maggie Thatchers (described as a man without a penis) are the exceptions that prove the rule.
What if she was just phoning it in and not showing up at the office:
Sources also noted that Abramson rarely engaged with newsroom staff and was often absent from the office, even when the paper was undergoing a severe round of buyouts in early 2013.
Perhaps in order to address this concern, Baquet told the newsroom Wednesday, “I’ll be around. I’ll be hands-on. I’ll be walking the aisles. It’s the only way I know how to edit.”
"A man behaving in the manner that causes a woman to be perceived as combative and condescending would probably be perceived as aggressive"
Well, men have ways of smoothing the edges of power relationships because, well basically, we have a mutual understanding developed over the length of our evolution so that we aren't constantly killing each other. In my experience, women will say things that men would never say, no matter how "aggressive," because they would demand an unwelcome response if said by a man to another man. When a woman says these kinds of things, the man is required to swallow the rage.
That is fine for subordinates, not so good for the woman's bosses.
Maybe I am just an old fossil, but it is very hard for a woman ever to be "one of the boys" because the "boys" have unwritten rules developed on playgrounds and settled in fist fights for getting along over their whole youth. I guess what I am saying is that a man who acts like that has little chance of attaining such a position.
The New Yorker article linked by garage mahal indicates that part of the problem was her demanding in increase in compensation to approximately that of the previous, male, executive editor.
Boy, those damn Republicans running the NYT and their War on Women.™
"News from the front in the War on Women: "New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson was abruptly fired."
War on Women? That is absurd. The New York Times leans left. Everyone knows that only right wingers are engaged in a war on women.
"I've certainly worked with men whose demeanor was best described as condescending, and it never occurred to me to find a less accurate word simply because of their gender."
Of course it would "never occur to" you. We are talking about the subconscious, the intuitive level of the mind.
If occurred to you and you scrambled to go light on men where you felt like being critical of women, you might control yourself and follow principles that you believe to be correct.
... staff said she was "condescending and combative"? Would they have said that about a man?
No, they'd have used different words to describe the same behavior. Is this what your feminism has dwindled to these days, Professor? The right to be called an arrogant prick instead being called a bitch?
BTW, I think tim in vermont has a very valid point. I correctly foresaw that Title IX would result in cancelling a lot of non-revenue men's sports but I had hoped that encouraging women to play sports at a high level would result in a new generation of women who understand that you don't need to like someone to work cooperatively with them. But where a high school or college or pro football player understands that you block for the quarterback even if you don't much like him, the shunning of Hope Solo by her teammates on the women's national soccer team told me that even at the highest levels of sports women just can't get it into their heads that teamwork means working in teams, not everybody has to love one another.
In 2009 in response to a question, my MBA prof, who was familiar with the research, said that women have a much smaller sweet spot than guys (in between 'too aggressive' and 'too soft') when it comes to outside perception. This might not hurt in a particular negotiation, but it damages how the other party feels about the person in an indirect way, and that hurts their prospects in the long run.
TL;DR: Shorter leash combined with people kowtowing to the bigger dog (Sulzberger).
I find it hard to believe she was fired over complaining about the comparison between her compensation and similarly situated males. I doubt the shake up will result in net $$ savings for the Times. Ken Auletta works fast and has great sources but there are going to be more shoes dropping here. Remember brilliant Howell Raines was also fired for reasons that included alienating his big bureaus.
Because i believe we are in the Age of Woman - the next POTUS is HRC - you already have elected her but you will know only on Nov. 2016, I have decided to no longer buy NYT - never again.
A paper that does not treat women with same salaries as men is like GOP which treats women differently. Same as they treat minorities, immigrants, and, gasp, scientists.
NYT is like GOP.
Prohibit "pushy".
I expect her to sue based on the NYT's shilling for the Lily Ledbetter Act getting paid less than a man? how 19th century!
No No. They were not treating her unequally. This was all a part of an effort to rein in pay and benefits that had become excessive. The NYT says so itself, and its integrity is unimpeachable.
"Twitter says…"
I read it on the internet…
Althouse, you realize you've switched from saying "people don't consider me to be condescending" to "of course people consider men condescending".
Re-read your response to me.
"You make a hell of an assumption about the difference between the way men's and women's behavior is perceived. If a man is combative and condescending that is the way he is perceived."
You know what? I said "probably"? But if you expect me to believe that judgments about men and women work exactly the same way, you're so overstating the point you want to make that you're not credible at all.
When we're talking about arrogance, aggression, competitiveness… if you won't concede that that judgment is made differently as to males and females… come on. Give me a break.
Problems aren't new. This from about a year ago.
'"Every editor has a story about how she’s blown up in a meeting,” one reporter said. “Jill can be impossible,” said another staffer.
Just a year and a half into her tenure as executive editor, Abramson is already on the verge of losing the support of the newsroom.'
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/new-york-times-turbulence-90544.html
Whoa! I came back to this post after you posted your "AHA." Frankly, that just cannot be right. Why the Times has spent years arguing in its editorial pages for the right of women to receive equal pay for equal work. Why would they expose their hypocracy so blatantly?
Sort of reminds me of the Washington Post pushing the interests of Big Labor in its editorial pages but ruthlessly crushing their pressman union when it suited them.
When we're talking about arrogance, aggression, competitiveness… if you won't concede that that judgment is made differently as to males and females… come on. Give me a break.
"Nobody I know voted for Nixon."
Is it sexist to say that a lot more men have the privelege of receiving training in how to lead and how to follow (good leaders should first know how to be good followers) over the course of their lives - from everything from Boy Scouts to sports teams to Frats? I don't think that men have some sort of leadership gene, but rather they have decades of training and socilization. Boys are more likely to engage in activities where there is a clearly defined pecking order.
I know personally trying to do things "by concensus" drives me nuts - I don't need to be in charge, and on many tasks I am happy to be a follower to a well-qualified leader, but I cannot stand being part of a rudderless committee.
I was talking about this with my wife - I was involved in Scouting all throughout my childhood, and she was involved in Girl Guides - and while discussing our respective experiences, it became pretty clear that in Guiding the parent/adult leaders would provide almost all of the leadership and direction, whereas in Scouts the adults would delegate a lot more of the work to the senior Scouts who led each section of 6 or so boys. That where boys learn how to lead, and how not to push their putative followers too far.
People in business, male and female, do not like being pushed around and disrespected. Nevertheless it happens, and if the pushy disrespector is getting the job done at a high level, it's tolerated unless it becomes extreme.
If the pushy disrespector is female, people have a harder time tolerating the behavior. It's always been unclear to me whether this is because women are expected to be nicer, or because women can be more relentlessly cutting. A guy will slam you and then be your buddy the next day. Women seem to drip the acid more consistently once it gets going. I say "seem" because this perception may just be a product of the niceness expectation from women. Hard to tell.
Likely Abramson would have been cut more slack had she been a man. She also would have had an easier time establishing a relationship with Sulzberger, who has had his own problems with lady relationships over the years in his personal life.
Ultimately the responsibility lies with Sulzberger, who promoted Abramson over her rival (and now replacement) Bequet, and now implicitly admits that he was either wrong in the choice, or bad at managing the relationship. Probably both.
And here is a news flash: Bequet is not the team playing altar boy he is portrayed as. He leaned in to her quite hard.
One further point.
Abramson knew full well that she was going to be judged and perceived differently because she was female. If she did not know that, she is quite the fool, and I doubt that she is.
Part of her job was to manage that issue. She failed in that effort. Unfair? I suppose. But at that level you have to manage all the problems, not live in a dream world.
“She had a lawyer make polite inquiries about the pay and pension disparities, which set them off.”
Nothing like a threat of being sued to crystallize one's thinking...
she probably didn't deserve as much as her male counterparts. she may not have been as good as they were. she was a cheaper worker and got the job. she wanted more money and they canned her. she was a bitch, so they canned her. She wasn't that good at her job, so they canned her. They wanted a cheaper or better replacement, so they canned her.
by all accounts, the NYT is still a piece of shit rag, so it's not like she was in charge of anything important.
As hypocritical, rudderless, condescending and ideologically blinkered as they can be, perhaps someone at the Times can still make decisions based on the bottom line.
If you back this merry band onto the spikes of their contradictions too forcefully, perhaps they dig in deeper and double-down.
Perhaps this is what happens we women decide we must bam labels like bossy rather than focusing on what kinds of behavior earn labels like "bossy".
It is possible, ladies, that people early in your life who tell you they don't like the way you behave are doing you a favor. Imagine if Abramson had learned to manage people better rather than telling herself other people just needed to appreciate the gift of her bossiness.
I find it hard to believe she was fired over complaining about the comparison between her compensation and similarly situated males.
I agree. I smell a rat. I'm betting there's more to this story than we presently know. Also betcha nobody's going to come out of this smelling nice.
As for conceding "that that judgment is made differently as to males and females": I concede it. Female bosses have often been problematic for me, and in a way men weren't, and aren't. I don't know what to make of that, really. Probably a lot it is to the faulty way I can sometimes relate to women. On the other hand, there are a number of females bosses I've gotten along with quite well. I don't know what to make of that either. Probably a lot it is due to the sometimes excellent way I relate to women.
Think Rahm Emmannel, Vince Lombardi, Bill Belichek and Screaming Bill Clinton. Hard taskmasters all, but beloved in their way. Also all consistent winners. Nobody was firing them for being abrasive. Or for not suffering fools gladly.
Is it possible the the NYT was full of fools that Jill would not suffer gladly, and that this was just a another successful revolt of the fools? The NYT is no longer a consistent winner. That did not start with Jill and will not end with her. To quote Lombardi, "what the hell is going on out here?"
The black fuy threw the white woman under the bus and got the job. Deal with that, leftie readers.
Women are expected to be nicer so when they aren't men are less tolerant of it.
I don't understand why she was paid less than Keller. They were both equally bad.
"Boys are more likely to engage in activities where there is a clearly defined pecking order."
Another way to see it is that the male pecking order is more likely to be accepted. Remember that way back in the day, males who could not fit into the hierarchy would be killed or banished.
The black fuy threw the white woman under the bus and got the job. Deal with that, leftie readers.
Paul at 5:50
"Most women prefer male bosses."
And so do most men.
Stupid editorials might figure in.
Get Dorothy Rabinowitz, if you need a woman in that position.
Have you ever heard this woman speak? Honestly, her voice is like a cartoon version of the upper West Side liberal - it's so nasally it's almost impossible to listen to without snickering.
I've known plenty of women who have had powerful jobs - the ones who were successful longer term learned to speak with authority. Not like a Valley Girl. Not like a shrew (Hillary!). You need to speak an octave or so lower, with some force, and the girlish stuff needs to stay at home in your bedroom.
Maybe she didn't interact with the newsroom much because they burst out laughing every time she spoke.
"Of course it would "never occur to" you. We are talking about the subconscious, the intuitive level of the mind. "
You mean the place that Democrats live. You are being more revealing then you realize, Ann. Republicans, and hopefully libertarians, live in the world of logic and reality. I'm very happy that my 24 years daughter seems to live there, too. Aging hippies are like dinosaurs, it's too hot for them.
Damn, David stole my thunder. I've worked for men and women bosses all my life. For whatever reason, people assume the female boss will be (i) nicer and more nurturing and (ii) maybe slightly less competent.
They are willing to go along with "less competent" - and rally around the female boss -if they are "nice".
But when they are "less competent" AND "not very Nice" - people get VERY upset - much more than when a bad Male boss is a less-than-competent asshole.
I don't know why.
As for Abramnson, I'm glad she was fired - I still remember her hit piece on Supreme Court Justice C. Thomas.
Yep, "Strange Justice", Jill. It has many meanings.
Looking at the picture from Drudge, I would say she is a confirmation of Rush Limbaugh's Undeniable Truth of Life "Feminism was established to allow ugly women access to the mainstream of society."
As they say, pass the popcorn.
This project of creating a male who can tolerate anything a woman dishes out with complete equanimity while her every word or deed, however outrageous to male sensibilities, is beyond examination is doomed from the start.
"In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion. If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth."
~said no one ever.
I predict an uptick in WH scrutiny at the NYT.
At Politico:
"The New York Times is pushing back against a report that executive editor Jill Abramson was fired after protesting that her salary was lower than that of her predecessor Bill Keller.
'Jill's total compensation as executive editor was not less than Bill Keller's, so that is just incorrect,' New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy told POLITICO on Wednesday. 'Her pension benefit, like all Times employees, is based on her years of service and compensation. The pension benefit was frozen in 2009.'
Murphy later added, 'the reason for the departure was as we said earlier: Arthur's concern over certain aspects of newsroom management.' "
I'm inclined to think it simply comes down to personality, and Baquet sounds like a good guy to work with/for:
"A native New Orleanian, Baquet is well-liked in the newsroom for his engaging personality and easy rapport with staffers. 'I think he's the perfect choice,' said Jim Amoss, editor of The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, who's been friends with Baquet for decades. 'As a manager, he's a rare combination of inspiring, empathetic and even-keeled. He know instinctively how to respond journalistically to news. The newsroom will naturally gravitate toward him'."
I'll bet Augusta National has an open tee time or two...
Eh, this is just the Times crossing things off the bucket list with urgency. Push out the the first woman editor for the first African-American editor, then a year or two down the line push out the African-American editor for whatever the next victim group is. If they hurry they can collect them all before declaring bankruptcy and shutting down the presses. If the next editor is a twofer, I recommend dumping your stock.
Iowahawk has lots of quips on the matter.
Keep scrolling.
I have no shits left to give. Really, the NYT and its courtiers are moving to the dustbin of history and it will not make a ripple on the surface of any lives of society.
"You mean the place that Democrats live. You are being more revealing then you realize, Ann. Republicans, and hopefully libertarians, live in the world of logic and reality."
Your "logical" idea of reality is not real. It's thin and impoverished. You are in denial about the depth and richness of the human mind and nervous system.
It's not scientific. It's denial and self-congratulation.
I am not impressed, but you are impressed with yourself. I am happy with what I've revealed about myself, which is a reasonably sophisticated understanding of what human beings are. You've revealed yourself too.
Isn't "condescending" the chief ingredient in the definition of "mansplaining"?
Ann
"Probably" is a weasel word, I tend to ignore it.
You said : "When we're talking about arrogance, aggression, competitiveness… if you won't concede that that judgment is made differently as to males and females… come on. Give me a break."
I won't concede your point. I spent 35 years managing men and women. If either sex exhibited the traits you mention it had nothing to do with their sex; it had a mostly to do with their background and personalities.
I have hired and known plenty of aggressive females and was happy to have them. That they were aggressive did not mean that they were rude, arrogant or condescending. They worked hard , were willing to take the hard jobs and take some risks. That's aggressive. "Combative" is an in-your- face attitude that is off-putting and counterproductive. It is most often exhibited by those who don't know what they are doing, or have been caught out in a mistake.
Competitiveness is an asset in either sex. If, all things being equal, I had the choice of hiring a female who had been a competitive athlete vs a man who had not been, I would go with the woman every time.
Do you judge your male and female students differently? I think not.
"Of course it would "never occur to" you. We are talking about the subconscious, the intuitive level of the mind."
So you don't need to address his argument, because you have detected that it is really just a screen for his true motivation. I would be surprised at you, Althouse, except that I realize it's just your hormones acting up.
Will this make Democrats rethink their War-on-Women schtick?
It's a perfect time to reevaluate In so many ways. Remember when they were first trying to get the war thing started, so Obama had to make a graduation speech at an all women's college- and it was Abramson he booted?
Surely they realize they have been caught not believing their own propaganda. Again.
You are in denial about the depth and richness of the human mind and nervous system.
That's women.
Women are wobbly voters too.
Micro-managers are lousy bosses, whether male or female. In my experience, however, the women I have worked for were all micro-managers (and a couple of them were psychotic as well) and not all the men were.
"Why would they expose their hypocracy so blatantly?"
Hmmm... Is that a typo, or a new word meaning "government by hypocrites"?
Look, let's be realistic here. The NYT did not fire this cow because she asked for a raise. There are lots of ways to handle someone who asks for a raise, that will not result in a shit-storm the magnitude of this one. No, the NYT fired this cow because they realized that the alternative to this shit-storm was something worse. My guess is that she was threatening to sue ("She had a lawyer make polite inquiries...". Don't we all welcome polite inquiries from other people's lawyers?), and they couldn't see the point of giving her a raise and keeping her around so she could have a nice comfy office to meet with her lawyers in.
My boss is a woman, and she merits our respect and loyalty by her calm, competent pragmatism. Believe me, anybody "condescending and combative", man or woman, we would absolutely eat alive. Incredibly, not everything's about gender.
Not buying it.
Abramson was the Times managing editor from 2003 to 2011. Before that, she spent years as bureau chief in the very big, very important DC bureau.
If she was such a bitch on wheels, surely it would have been known to all long ago.
I once had a female boss who got drunk at a party I was attending and took me home to her apartment and had did the wild and nasty-nasty with me. A week later she fired me. I didn't complain because it was worth it to have banged her. Also I thought maybe she might want to bang me again. Guys always think that way. She didn't bang me again but I overall I was satisfied with the outcome. She was a really great lay and worth losing my job for. A memory I cherish.
The "war on women" narrative crafted on the basis of a weak assumption is the cause of its own undoing.
I thought reducing the pay disparity between the top 1% and the working man was a good thing in Liberal Land.
Clue, Jill: The corporation is hemorrhaging money. Staff is reduced. Union deals are renegotiated. Management has to share the pain.
Or have you singlehandedly reversed forty years of decline?
I think it would be fair to characterize Solange's behavior in the elevator as combative. Since the elevator was going down at the time, such behavior can also be described as condescending. So there you have it. Documented evidence that it's possible for women to be combative and condescending.....With Jayz and Solange, you can see the difficulties involved in having two rampant,aggressive egos occupying a limited amount of space at the same time. Perhaps something similar happened at the NYT.
Jean Shepherd dismantles C. L. Sulzberger
(real audio)
How's the creative fiction class going, Roughcoat?
Is it a slam dunk that a man behaving in a negative way (similar to that of a particular woman would NOT be perceived as "combative and condescending?"
Could not a man be perceived as "combative and condescending" if he were merely... oh, I don't know... an asshole?
Is it a slam dunk that the woman in this case wasn't perceived not as a woman, but merely as an asshole? Assholes come in all shapes and sizes.
Hey, we're talking about the NYT here... if those cats can't use different words to describe folks with different equipment, we're all screwed. Those guys practically invented nuance!!
It's all so confusing, this hypocrisy.
#Shitcan bossy
"Now, the NYT has financial woes and her predecessor had more seniority, but so what?"
You can't get blood from a turnip. There are consequences to a flagging financial situation. It's not like they're the US government.
Yes garage, the New York Times is engaged in a WAR ON WOMEN!
Live by the sword....
"Baquet would replace Abramson, less than three years after she was appointed the first woman in the top job. Baquet will be the first African-American to lead the Times."
She had three years.
So little time, so many minorities.
@Julie C said...
"Have you ever heard this woman speak?"
True, but that's cultural as well. When I was younger, I could not stand the slow, turgid way that older men speak - usually associated with gravitas or authority. Best example, the OJ trial. Marcia Clarke went fast. I preferred her way of communicating. They called her hysterical. Johnnie was slow and stupid and ponderous. Drove me insane to listen to him. Drove me doubly insane to hear people complimenting him.
I got over it with effort. But it's a societal bias and people on the other side can get over it as well. I prefer female voices or guys who speak much faster and slightly higher - as Steve Jobs did. I perceive them as far more intelligent than their slower, deeper-voiced male counterparts.
If American women were obeyed in reasonable numbers when speaking in their naturally softer voice, like high-ranking Asian women sometimes are, it wouldn't be a problem. But in a highly extroverted LOUD nation, they aren't, so they have to strain their vocal chords or speak sharply, and nasally painfully cut through the noise.
Southern American women, black and white, often have less nasal, rounder, more resonant voices that work well in those situations.
Hey they "banned Bossy" when she asked for equal pay. Sulzberger must not be following the op ed page in his paper.
"He knows instinctively how to respond journalistically to news."
Let's wait and see if he honors that instinct or if he consciously submerges it beneath an ideological response. If important stories that don't reflect well on Democrats keep winding up on Page 19 then we'll have our answer.
I had a boss who knew her job, took risks, and stood up to for her employees in meetings with the higher-ups, but didn't take shit from her employees. She was tough but fair. She gave a damn but rarely showed it.
No touchy-feely theories, little in the way of bullshit.
She aimed to get the job done and for competence. She didn't micro-manage.
Respect is earned. Leadership is a duty with more risks and more reward. You might get a few things done during your tenure, and it might be what you end up doing in life.
***The less people have the more they fight over it.
***The less people do, the more they care about what everyone else is doing.
" I am happy with what I've revealed about myself, which is a reasonably sophisticated understanding of what human beings are."
No. You are clueless. You have imbibed the feminist koolade. Your assessment of the innate differences, predilections, and capabilities of men and women is just so much self laudatory nonsense. Trying to remake our biological blueprint into something that flatters your ego is the height of hubris and foolishness. Do you seriously imagine that thousands of years of decisive leadership with life and death consequences born on the shoulders of men can be just erased from our DNA because your of your self serving whims?
Men had to lead, decide, fight, invent, plan, and protect their wards, or everyone died. Women had to raise children and perform whatever supportive domestic tasks they could to help the men to protect them and their offspring.
These different roles are engrained in our biology, the wiring of our brains and endocrine system.
The only reason you can't see and accept something so obvious to even a child is selfishness and greed.
You are in denial about the depth and richness of the human mind and nervous system.
You sound just like any other person refusing to question his or her religious beliefs. Your certainty about something doesn't make it true.
@wayne.
Rush is now old and ugly. He was morbidly obese in his youth.
What was his entry into the mainstream of society? He turned his unfuckability and drama geek sensibility into profitability.
Does this make his every observation suspect and untrue, in your opinion?
Then why would it for the feminists?
I guess they thought she actually believed the stuff that they publish. Can't have that.
Althouse: You are in denial about the depth and richness of the human mind and nervous system.
NOBODY EXPECTS THE CREAMY HIPPIE CHICK CENTER!
She had a lawyer make polite inquiries about the pay and pension disparities, which set them off.
IOW, she didn't have the balls to stand up for herself. Which shows she isn't really much of a leader, much less manager. Probably all credential, little talent, picked for her vagina and politics, rather than her skills.
Using a lawyer to ask why she was getting paid less was a huge mistake. Probably her last mistake.
If she sues, it just verifies the NYTs judgment in firing her and it will be what the NYT deserves for hiring her in the first place.
You are in denial about the depth and richness of the human mind and nervous system.
The worst sort of human behavior is motivated by the subconscious mind and emotional reactions separated from reason and reality, Ann.
While important holistically, humanity is better served when emotions and subconscious feelings are put into check and rationality and consideration is used to make decisions that affect other people.
The privileging of emotional reactions and the manipulations using said reactions, over reason, is the entire problem with modern progressivism and feminized society.
Women trying to portray non-thinking emotionalism as some sort of asset are utterly wrong. That goes for men as well.
There's is nothing sacred about the emotional mind, and the female tendency to elevate it above rationality and reason, simply because they are female, causes more problems than it solves.
Poor Jill Abramson, she leaned in so much she could be toppled by a Pinch.
That is perfect.
So, they pushed out a woman and pushed up a black man.
Did affirmative action have anything to do with his promotion and his resume?
Is this a gender card/race card exchange?
The internal contradictions of the race/gender/income dialectic seems to be reaching critical mass.
These people need to check their privilege - oh, except for the black guy. He's probably OK.
What a nice petard they have for being hoisted upon.
Pushy is gendered, now? I've heard lots of women say they don't like guys who are pushy.
Perhaps Wisconsin should replace their condescending and bossy old white female employees with people higher up on the victimhood quota checklist.
Muzzle Menopause
not suffering fools gladly
I've observed that people who "don't suffer fools gladly" often have a very wide-ranging idea of what a "fool" is.
Johanna Lapp:
That's a good point. She was not a victim of discrimination, but caught in a process to reach convergence. I wonder how much the new editor will be offered.
Maybe she wasn't nurturing enough, or insufficiently interested in the personal narratives of her staff, or maybe she was less collaborative than everyone had been told she would be, her being in possession of ovaries and an uterus as she was.
I call bullshit. I have too many anecdotes of women bosses being intolerable. Most women prefer male bosses.
For eons men have been leaders and women followers. Something to do with gestation and child rearing, ya think? All of of sudden some leftist equalist twits decide that a million years or more of evolution and biological conditioning can be overcome at a whim and women shall lead. Puhleeze.
I call bullshit. Conservatives believe in evolution?
I will second what you said in your 1st graph re: women's feelings toward female bosses, however. Not all the time, but it's definitely an issue - and not always without a point.
"I call bullshit. Conservatives believe in evolution?"
Of course asshole. I'm politically and economically conservative, believing in the primacy of individual rights, property rights, and restricted government power, but I'm atheist and my belief system reason based as opposed to faith based. Sorry if that doesn't fit your bigoted preconceptions.
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